Mobile commerce, using mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets or the like, is rapidly expanding in popularity. Many applications for such devices enable users to make “in app” purchases, that is to say, to purchase content, goods or services on-line from within the application running on the mobile devices. On-line purchases also may be made using a generic browser application as the interface and Internet communications. Many purchase transactions using mobile devices today require use of an existing credit or debit card account. More recently, several different companies have introduced mobile wallet type services that allow users to pay for goods and services at more traditional brick-and-mortar type establishments via their mobile devices. However, mobile wallet type services also require input of information to identify one or more of the user's credit or debit card accounts, to be used in actual transactions.
Hence, many existing mobile commerce implementations for on-line mobile commerce or for mobile wallet type transactions require mobile device users to manually enter credit card or account information. Once entered, the device can be used, for example, in a transaction to purchase a product or service. Entry of the information may be necessary for each transaction. Processes such as linking out to existing accounts or preloading and storage of the account information have also existed, but those processes require a user to have a dependency on other applications, payment wallets or for the user to preload their payment details. In many cases, even these other processes require at least an initial manual entry of the account information.
A number of newer mobile devices include near field communication (NFC) capability, and this capability has recently been used in purchasing goods or services at brick and mortar establishments that have contactless payment terminals. However, even NIT based payment has typically required a previous set-up of the payment methodology, e.g. including user input of the relevant credit or debit account information.
Other techniques used to simplify payment flow include Amazon One-Click, which allows a user to purchase an item with a linked payment system using a single click. The disadvantages of such a system include the prerequisite that users must setup their payment method ahead of time and a single click is still required.